Confessions of a Diplomatic Pouch Clerk
By James A. Abrahamson. The author was in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1957 to 1969. This is a true story of his experiences while employed as a diplomatic pouch clerk in the American Consulate General in Sydney, Australia; and in the U.S. Embassies in Manila, Beirut and Tokyo The story entails his fight with Neo-McCarthyites in the State Department, the effects in Beirut of the 1967 Six Day War; a nuptial quandary with a Japanese Qantas airline stewardess; and assorted golfing, drinking and sexual divertissements. It is punctuated with original insights and with the malaise and anger which has befallen the psyches of Americans of good will following the death of FDR and the assassinations of his potential successors.
Click here to view a web page about this book.
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 A Train to Potevka
By Mike Ramsdell, retired Helsinki Support Courier. Set in the backdrop of the chaotic, volatile events in Russia at the end of the Cold War, A Train To Potevka will take you on an incredible, winter's journey across Great Mother Russia along the 6,000-mile Trans-Siberian Railway. This fascinating story about an American intelligence agent from the small town of Bear River, Utah is a tale of failed espionage, escape, and survival.
For more information, please visit the author's website. |
 Travels for Daggers: Adventures in Collecting
By Eiler R. Cook, a retired U.S. Diplomatic Courier. More than 500 weapons are pictured and described during a globe-spanning trip laced with the author's personal adventures and experiences. Read more about the book, including ordering information, on this page (PDF document.) |
 The Ten Million Mile Man
Click here to view more information about this book at Amazon.com.
Bob LaPlante spent four decades as a U.S. Diplomatic Courier, during which time he logged over ten million miles traveling in 197 countries. Now, for the very first time in print, one of history's most traveled men records his experiences for the world to share.
Bob LaPlante will thrill fans of biography as he recounts how, over the years, he met many of the luminaries of this century. Whether recalling his encounters with Ernest Hemingway in Venice, Albert Schweitzer in East Africa, President Harry Truman in Washington, or the time he was a backstage guest of Duke Ellington in Germnay, Bob LaPlante is always great company.
Sharing the many exotic locales he visited over his long career, the reader feels as if he or she is right there with the Ten Million Mile Man as he relates his tales of adventure. Skiing out of control in Andorra, fishing in Greenland, minding the shop for a currency exchanger in Kuwait, being stranded for the night in the sub-arctic wilderness, narrowly escaping a time bomb while in the company of his son in Frankfurt, being caught in an Afghanistan village following a devastating flash flood: these are just a few of the hair-raising stories that Bob LaPlante recalls in his memoirs.
Bob LaPlante was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1924. He attended universities in both America and Europe and holds both a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's in Scandinavian history. During World War II he served as a naval combat officer.
Bob LaPlante served under ten presidents from Truman to Clinton as a U.S. Diplomatic Courier. He has also worked as an explorer, a pilot, an archaeologist, and a jazz musician.
Bob LaPlante's published works include several newspaper articles as well as two academic volumes, "The Viking Surge" and "They Sold Their Homes." At present, he lives with his son, Erik, in a pine lodge on the northern shores of Lake Michigan. |
